Kapitel 80: Chapter 70

Umi covertly got home in the most secretive way she knows; tiptoeing to the entrance but the area of her residence was big that she got spotted by few people albeit they didn't interrupt her and let her be.

Walking on the wooden floor made a slight creaking sound.

"Pew.." Umi removed the sweat on her head before heading towards her room calmly. But a person walked out in one of the sliding doors. It was her mother. She saw her daughter lightly sneaking while bringing something large in her back. She couldn't help but call out to her daughter.

"Umi? What are you doing?" Her mother asked with a stoic face. She was wearing a traditional kimono with pink blossoms on it. Her mother was always calm such a time like this. Umi still loves her parents even if they were busy. They allow her to do what she wanted and will spend time with her when they weren't busy, which she was always glad and so she welcomed them in open arms.

"Hahaue..." Umi bowed and greeted her courteously. Her mom was a virtuous master of calligraphy. Her mother taught her calligraphy during childhood and was the same for her father that taught her few fighting techniques. That was why she was so skilled in many things while having plentiful stamina. Her mother nodded, affirming her greeting, but she continued asking her.

"Why are you sneaking like that?" Her mother looked at her suspiciously and eyed the thing she brought back. A white cloth covering something, Umi wasn't able to lie on her mother, she stutteringly removes the cloth step by step while her mother waited. It was Hiroto's drawing of her overly cute outfit with a shooting gesture at her hand. Umi wanted to cover it up but her mother held it in her hand and looked at it scrutinizing.

"My friend made it but what's on it makes little sense to me... ha-ha." Umi got embarrassed and tried to change her mother's gaze.

"Hmmm, this is good." Her mother nodded. She appreciated the artwork, and she didn't seem to care that her daughter was wearing a frilly Idol outfit, and that made Umi sigh in relief. Her mother thought it was great and it can compare to the top masters in all things from what she observed.

"Eh? you approve?" Umi couldn't believe it. Her mother who was so picky in arts had approved his work. She got elated and somewhat proud, but she didn't realize herself.

"Hm, having an artist friend is always good, where does your friend work, what company? Or does your friend draw alone?" Umi got bombarded by her mother's composed questioning. Sweat appeared in her head before she said calmly and smiled at her mother.

"He's a first-year at Otonokizaka and my club member," Umi said with elation. Her mother turned wide-eyed and wasn't able to speak for a moment before nodding to compose herself.

"Have you looked at his signature?" Her mother asked Umi got puzzled before looking at the small signature in the bottom right corner of the canvas. His signature used precise lettering and written in cursive, 'HTamaki' it says. She knew what her mother meant, he knew calligraphy, her mother was such a master and she can easily see that he used a form of it.

"To draw amazingly while writing so similar to that of oriental calligraphy!" Umi said out loud. Her mother's mouth turned into a slightly chuckling one.

"You should befriend him more. He is a talented male and will succeed in the future. Your already friend of him right?" Her mother smiled gently at her slightly blushing daughter.

"Yes...." Umi told her what he was focusing on. Her mother listened to her composedly. A hint of light appeared in her mother's eyes. Her mother told their father about it and it was boisterous, seeing their daughter pouting while blushing around the corner. Getting approval from her parents to be friends with him was something unwarranted to her, but she can only nod with a blush on her face.

It's been a week since then. The exam had passed uneventfully. Everyone passed in flying colors. During the new month, the media asked for an interview with him a lot of times. He was now a popular streamer and a master pianist on the internet, albeit he declined since he didn't want to reveal his situation. He would sometimes saw fans looking for him that wanted to take a picture with him or something similar which he also accepted but not if it bothers him. He would also get some invitations of performing as a guest in events. He felt that it was troublesome, but he accepted some of it. He let his mother help him in scheduling, which she accepted readily. This sudden spike of people knowing him even got Maki affected since they saw her with him.

"Is it because of our performance in the competition?" Maki felt amazed while slightly excited.

"Are you worried or not? I hate paparazzi's the most, thankfully I haven't seen one looking for us." He sighed in relief while he held her hands.

"I'll kick those guys if they stalk me." Maki proudly said.

"Aren't you the fans because they don't like idols on a relationship." He asked. Maki pouted at him while pinching his waist.

"I don't care about what they said, as long as I perform then who would care? Besides, we're not on a company or something." Maki leered at him.

"You are right, can I take a nap?" He looked at her with a gentle smile on his face.

"Take a nap?" Maki turned puzzled. He pointed at her thighs, which made her embarrassed with reddened cheeks.

"What are you pointing, lecher.." Maki leered, but she patted her thighs. He lies down at her plump thighs that calmed him.

'This is so embarrassing!'

"So comfortable~" He relaxed while gazing towards her girlfriend's cute expression.

They were currently sitting on the school premises while waiting for her Mom to fetch her.

"I'm slightly embarrassed in this position and my legs might get numb." Maki pouted while slightly looking away from his serious face below her.

"Can you join me next week? I have another event to take part in." He waited for her to look at him. Maki nodded while they looked at each other for around many seconds. Now, looking at her blushing self, his courage of making a harem seems to vanish. He didn't want to disappoint her. She had been regularly visiting at his house, and it made him happy.

"Maki, if I did something wrong in the far future will you forgive me?" He asked while looking at her seriously.

"W-What are you talking about, so seriously? Of course, if you did something wrong, I will be angry at you." Maki rolled her eyes.

"But... maybe I won't be that angry." Maki cute said with a low tone. If they were still together, then that means they accepted each other on everything they had. She looked forward to what kind of future she had with him.

'It seems the road to that quest is a little bumpier than I thought.' He sighed helplessly.

"What are you sighing about? Are you dissatisfied with my answer?" Maki looked at him suspiciously.

Having an idle talk with her seems to calm his troubled mind so much. He just wished that the system can present his ideal thoughts and not what his irrefutable thoughts that sometimes linger in his mind, but even so, the thought persisted.

Nico joined the gang while they got their club merged. Everyone got to know her and got used to her semi likable personality. Everyone knew that she wasn't saying what she feels. Just like Maki's personality at first, he made a joke about it in front of the girls and made a serious face with it.

"What do you mean by that?" Nico gritted her teeth before harrumphing towards the back with crossed-arms. Red tint appeared in her cheeks and it made everyone laugh. She faked coughed and looked at the only male of the group with a serious face.

"Don't you have other things to do rather than just wait here and idle?" Nico asked to take revenge on him. He had been accompanying them and just staying unproductive in one corner. In the training's duration, she saw him and Maki being cozy with each other. Looking at them, she knew they had a relationship and didn't mind, but seeing it otherwise always irked her about something.

"I am quite busy with my laptop, you know?" He plainly said before Nico gritted her teeth. She can't find faults from him.

"Hiroto-kun, what are you doing this time." Kotori felt curious as she asked while crouching next to him.

"Yes, we've been seeing you later in that corner." Rin felt the same way.

"Mm? Ah, you see I've been making a few games, one of them is Pokemon GO." He plainly said while typing on the laptop.

"Pokemon GO? What's that?" Honoka asked and approached him with full curiosity.

"Haven't you made a few of them already?" Umi asked confusedly.

"I want to make a larger one and those I did before we're only simple games." He said.

Hiroto had been making the game during their training. Pokemon GO was a hit game during its prime. When it got released, it earned so much installation that it turned into a craze towards people around the world. The hit game was because of the franchise and its existing popularity, while he knew he can't easily make the game, but with his Programming (Master) Skill, he made the client version for the user ends of it.

In his past life, the game plopped down and turned into a miserable app. The people expected something better, but the game didn't turn out what they thought. The greediness of the company leads to their fall. They weren't able to give their players the attention they need and just focused on many in-game purchases that everyone didn't like. (AN: I didn't like that every stop's had a bot waiting there with some legendries during the first two months they released it. It was so dumb that I quitted. XD)

'They also removed the Pokemon Tracking which was an essential tool for trainers, what a dumb idea..'

He explained to the girls what the game is all about.

"Wow, playing the game while traveling? That sounds kinda fun to me." Honoka wanted to play the game, but he didn't have any way to try it since he only had the build of the user end of the game. He needed the source platform from the provider of GPS service in the world, the cloud architecture that could handle massive amounts of players in real-time. He wanted to make the game, but he can only do it for the Japan area for now. What he could do was to region-lock the game so it can establish no foreign connections. While all the GPS systems would only work in the Japanese state.

"Eh? I think it would be a hassle walking from place to place." Rin nonchalantly said. The athletic born she was, she didn't like to prolong activities even if she was fit enough to do that task.

"You're just lazy Rin." Maki leered at her before getting a hug from her.

"Your so cute Maki-chan!" Rin rubbed her face to hers.

"Let me go!" Maki tried to remove her hug and failed. She let her do what she pleased as Hanayo tried to stop her.

"I want to play it, Can I see the animals arts?" Hanayo looked at him with sparkling eyes. He showed her the artworks for individual pokemon and made a slideshow for them to see.

"Wah! How cute!!" Hanayo legitimately got elated.

"Cute and pretty!" Kotori was also heart-struck by the cuteness of the pokemon artwork he made.

"Can you draw me one? I want to paste it in my room wall!" Kotori made a pleading eye.

"I could do that later." He nodded.

"Me too!" Honoka raised her hand.

"Can you.." Umi put her hands on her back and got shy. He nodded to everyone, and that made them jumpy.

'The company focused capitalizing on the existing feature without implementing new ones.' He inwardly thought. Not everyone wanted a game that could bore them. They called the casual gamer like that because they only play out of fun and if they get bored, they will stop playing. Even if the hardcore pokemon go fans continued to play the game, it didn't matter. The company's game got tarnished, that lead to its massive drop in popularity and massive height of uninstalls.

'It was a good game though, playing while being able to exercise what could be more worth it than exploring different cities while finding rare pokemon's!' He chose this game because it was a relaxing game while being able to work out at the same time.

"Hiroto-nyah?" Rin tapped his shoulder and wanted to ask something.

"In any case, I need to contract a game company or something, wait...." He asked for their opinion.

'Why not I just make it a semi single-player thing, while still having the augmented feature and the maps, that could work!!' He thought, that with his programming skill, he might be able to remove the bypass for the past game he saw. The exploits that ruined the game. If he could make it an anti-hack system with a lightweight feature, then that would be great. Cloud services for games don't use too many resources or information, and they were readily available on the internet. He was thankful that he didn't focus on the framework for the internet architecture and had made a prototype single player that could relay itself to the GPS of an existing framework like from Moogle Maps API. (An: Cloud Service - Internet Service for giving computing resources for multi-player games and many online games used it. API - The key to use the different cloud services out on the internet.)

"I don't know one though." Honoka laughed wryly and lightly scratched her head.

"Why don't you try Mega Games, they develop one popular game called Grand Online in mobile phones," Nico said with crossed arms. He heard what she said and nodded gratefully, but he didn't decide for now since it wasn't his cup of tea. He wanted to take full profit, and he didn't want to share the game he made. 'Haruhi Suzumiya's novel was just a kick-start for his financial situation, and he already wrote all volumes of it during this month's end. He had been typing another novel, but he held on him for now.

Rin had been asking him to show his new games to her.

"Play the other game I made, it's called Plants vs Zombies." He opened the finished product and gave it to Rin to play the game. He was slightly excited. Plants vs Zombies was an iconic and popular game from its time, just like from the novel he published. Plants vs Zombies was a game that hit the market then. It was so good and everyone likes it, from different ages of people, everyone liked to place plants and fights zombie hordes and make strategies effectively.

Pokemon Go and Plants vs Zombies artwork and design were easy enough to do and wasn't that overwhelming. Every Pokemon was easy enough to do while he didn't add every pokemon on the get-go. The other things for the game were bland textures. He made the map using an artificial intelligence baking method (AN: Machine Learning.) to adapt it to his version and making it more comic and bluish feel to the whole interface. Its music was only a repeating sound while making gurgling sounds for the pokemon wasn't a hard thing to do using his piano, its synthesizer mode.

He could make the Plants vs Zombies sprites and textures to one or two pages of paper. He can easily recall all the game's units and draw it calmly. He remembers some parts of the theme song of the music nonetheless made another version himself.

The Piano Skill was versatile enough to create chip-tune songs. So he made 10 different theme songs for the 5 different stages of the game. He copied some parts of games he remembered in his past-life and remixed it with the game's theme. Overall, he was able to remake the original with 93% accuracy, he still implemented the shop mascot but he changed it and called it the Crazy Yan, a cute girl that had a twin-tail with knives on both hands while saying cute devilish quote's.